The Specific Ocean

Once upon the child from her torn red booster seat shouts:  Look!
          It’s the Specific Ocean!
                                                                       & who was I to say she was mistaken?

The specific pelican chased down a flash of plastic lure as if fresh bonito.

The specific fisherman in his bloodied yellow coat pointing toward the horizon
          with fixed devotion.


At the end of the diving board, she was going to wait as long as she was going to wait.

                                                & if our enemy was never water


the last wave on the intake form remains:

          How many live births?


Some languages have the same word for time & for weather & which daughter
          was it again?

A squabble of gulls hovered closer to shore.
Maybe bored. Maybe getting warmer.


          The ocean remained specifically violent

as the love note bleeding out on a paper towel: Be back, maybe.


Specific as the sandbar of memory mistaking itself

          again for rock, gone darker

          down low, where last it was touched.